


squall

by mintyfreshness



Series: Storms [3]
Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death of a Partner/Spouse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, Minor Injuries, Suicidal Thoughts, angst fest 2k19, background Hiccstrid, little bit of whump, shitty parenting, this tag list looks dramatic it's honestly not that dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-05-16 03:33:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19309783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintyfreshness/pseuds/mintyfreshness
Summary: in which so much of Stoick's life hurts, until it doesn'tfrom Valka's disappearance to Stoick's sacrifice[a character study of sorts • alternative title: it hurts]





	squall

**Author's Note:**

> this is an angst fest so brace yourself
> 
> I've tried to tag everything I think may be triggering but if I've missed something please let me know

It hurts.

 

It hurts so much that I fear my heart may well give out on me at any moment. My wife is gone, stolen from me by the beasts she fought so hard to protect, and I am left alone with my grief and my pain.

 

I have not eaten. I have not slept.

 

Valka is gone.

 

I never believed I would marry for love. I accepted from a young age that my marriage would be political, for the benefit of the tribe, something to endure; but the gods in all Their generosity saw fit to bless me with a fierce and talented wife, graceful and lovely, who took my heart gladly when I offered it and gave hers in return without reservation.

 

It hurts to know I will never wake up beside her again. The golden sunlight raising the red in her hair against the soft skin of her back as we made love. The swell of her belly, the feeling of our child, our son and heir, growing and thriving under her warm alabaster skin.

 

It’s been two days.

 

I have not slept. I cannot eat.

 

Neither can she.

 

 

_Is this what it is, to have a broken soul?_

_Is this what it is, to know pain worse than death?_

 

 

My child is without a mother. And a father. He cries and he calls, but I cannot find the energy to lift him. A babe that fits in the palm of my hand. My own son and heir. And I do not want to even look at him, so strong is the resemblance to the woman I love who no longer breathes.

 

It hurts that my wife is dead. It hurts so much that I can barely force the air into my lungs that keeps me alive.

 

But it hurts more knowing that I am failing my son as well.

 

A tankard of ale becomes a barrel. A barrel becomes a dozen. It is not enough to keep my grief subdued, for it bays for my attention without cessation for hours, days, weeks, time gradually blurring the distinction between blissful oblivion and excruciating existence, dulled by the lukewarm tendrils of alcohol that sliver down my throat and pry the pain away from direct consciousness. I could almost let myself escape in it, let myself be consumed by the oblivion that calls, and pray that the gods take mercy enough on me to let me see her again in Valhalla.

 

.

.

.

.

.

 

If it wasn’t for Hiccup.

 

 _Hiccup_.

 

My boy. Oh, how I have failed him, orphaned him in one fell stroke in my own grief. Gods forgive me, I do not even know who has cared for him in my stead.

 

I won’t carry on like this. Not anymore. I _can’t_.

 

Hiccup needs me. And – I cannot escape it anymore – I need him. He, who is half me and half my incomparable wife. He, who will grow to lead us. He, who is my own flesh and blood.

 

 

 

_Is this what it is, to not want to carry on, but to do it anyway, for the sake of another person?_

_Is this what it is, to love another person with all your heart, despite the pain it causes?_

 

* * *

 

 It hurts, this feeling. Embarrassment. _Shame_.

 

My son. My son, and heir; the _Pride of Berk_.

 

When he was born, they cried it in celebration into their tankards, though he was early and small. When he lived through the night in which I lost my hope, they breathed it as a sigh of relief, though Valka was gone.

 

Now, they snigger it as he trips and clutters his way around the village. They mumble it under their breath as he leaves a trail of devastation in his wake. His name often follows in the place of an expletive.

 

An honorific become a joke.

 

The worst feeling is the sympathy people try to offer me, as though they believe I feel the shame they think I do.

 

No, the worst feeling is that I _do_ feel shame in my own son, my own flesh and blood, even though he is not yet a man.

 

No, the worst feeling is that I don’t feel unjustified in doing so.

 

He is small. He is weak. He is not a Viking.

 

The tribe is large. It is strong. It is the embodiment of the best and worst of our ways. It is hundreds, where he is but one. And I have a duty to protect.

 

Is this how I must weigh it, then? The life of my people against that of my son?

 

Is this how the gods see justice, then? Have I not yet suffered enough?

 

Is this what my purpose is, then? My duty, yet to be fulfilled, through the absconding of familial love?

 

Frigga, take mercy on me.

 

.

.

.

.

.

 

I miss Valka. 

 

* * *

 

 

It hurts, but I have only a second to spit the mouthful of blood out and rub a hand over the bruise that will surely blossom on my bicep before I have to return to the chaos before me.

 

Another raid. Possibly the worst in months, although there’s no real way to prove it. Every time I look up there is a new demon ravaging a sheep pen, savaging a building, threatening my people- it is a never-ending slog to defend, protect, survive.

 

And through it all, he is eternally in the way. A distraction for every member of the tribe, honour-bound to keep everyone safe on nights like this one, when their focus would be better served hiding livestock, putting out fires, throwing an axe or bolas or a spear at these infernal beasts. He disappears for a moment, and I breathe a sigh of relief, expecting that someone has locked him away out of danger, but then-

 

Odin, but he truly is _useless_. I barely snatch him from the jaws of death, personified by that Nightmare – and in the process, we lose dragons we had captured and livestock we had defended. It’s nothing short of a blessing that no one is dead or gravely injured.

 

And he’s there, blabbering about how he hit a Night Fury – _pull the other one, son, it’s got bells on it_ – and though I do my best to stay calm, the adrenaline of battle and injuries, the frustration of failure, they seep to my consciousness thoughts and explode in a tirade. It is unending, impossible, _exhausting_ to say this to him so many times only for him to disregard everything that comes out of my mouth.

 

I am still fuming as I address my people a short while later.

 

 _This can stand no longer,_ I tell them all, assembled in front of me with expressions clear of emotion but for exhaustion and mild fury. _This time is the last time_. _We finish this, once and for all_.

 

It hurts that no one agrees to join me until I threaten them with the care of the Hiccup- my son.

 

Oh, how I must look like such a failure to them. And yet they follow me anyway. I have yet to decide if this is a blessing or a punishment.

 

By the time I leave the Hall, the sun is well and truly risen, and the brightness of the autumn dawn bores into the back of my eyes during my walk back to my bed. But I do not shield myself from it. This is punishment I must endure, for my failures.

 

As the door swings shut behind me, I finally allow the tiredness and soreness created by the night’s events to come to the front of my mind, but despite all the things I need to think about, as I collapse into the pile of furs by the fire only one thought sits in blinding clarity among the murky pool of the rest.

 

_I miss Valka._

 

* * *

 

 

It hurts; oh, the pain of being proved wrong is always biting and unforgiving, but the true pain is the probability, growing second by second, that my boy – my impossible, useless, _wonderful_ boy – has proved me wrong but has not lived to know it.

 

The fog and the ash sit low, mocking me, impeding my search. I call and call his name into the voided world around me, but he does not respond. He could have fallen anywhere; he could be bare feet or hundreds of metres away from me – in this ashen world there is no way to tell.

 

I turn and call and call and turn, each shout that passes my lips more frantic, more desperate than the last, until finally the smog clears enough for my eyes to fall on a black mound in the distance that looks like a dead Night Fury.

 

My muscles scream from exertion and exhaustion from battle, and yet I have no choice but to run, my feet sliding all over the damned stones, unable to look anywhere other than the leather harness that is slowly unravelling atop the dragon’s back.

 

No sign of Hiccup. Why would there be, after a fall like that.

 

I am not just widowed, but childless now too.

 

 _I did this_.

 

 _I_ did this.

 

I did this.

 

And the pain and exhaustion and _guilt_ makes me fall to my knees next to the dragon, whose raspy, uneven breaths only confirm what I know. If a beast as strong as this is so wounded and afflicted by a fall, there is no hope for my fishbone of a son.

 

I did this. I should have listened to him. _I did this_.

 

I feel my people move through the fog behind me, their murmurs indistinguishable at that distance, but I can hear the tone of them clearly enough. Sombre. Mournful.

 

And now I have failed truly. I have not protected one of our own. How can I expect respect when I cannot earn it? How can I continue to lead us when I have the blood of a tribesman on my hands?

 

My son’s blood.

 

Is this what I have deserved? Earnt? Is this the gods passing judgment on my life?

 

At least I know now I can fall no further.

 

The dragon starts to come to, moaning softly as it blinks its eyes open like a cat. Its gaze comes to rest on me; if dragons could feel emotion, I would almost say that it is looking at me with something akin to pity.

 

It knows as well as I do that Hiccup is dead.

 

And then it shifts and opens its wings.

 

And inside is-

 

_Oh, please, Odin, Freyja, Frigga – please let him be alive. Please, please-_

 

I feel the rapid, but _strong_ pulse of his heart in his chest.

 

He’s alive.

 

He’s alive!

 

He’s unconscious and – as Gobber tactfully points out – gravely injured, but he’s still alive.

 

I could be dying myself right now and I wouldn’t feel any pain. My son is still living.

 

Nothing else could make me happier.

 

* * *

 

 

It hurts less now.

 

The shame of being father to a _hiccup_. It is barely a shadow of what it once was.

 

My son, the pride of Berk. My son, the saviour of our souls.

 

My son, Hiccup.

 

My heart bursts with pride at the changes he has made, enriching and improving all our lives one crazy invention at a time. Dragon stables, dragon perches, dragon saddles. Dragon everything, for the beasts I once called demons I now call family, members of our tribe – hard-working and compassionate. The changes he has made would be all but unthinkable mere months ago – and now he can barely walk around the village without being accosted with his new supporters, asking for advice, inquiring about his next adventure, begging for favours for their dragons. From the lowest of the low, to the height of respect – and he is gracious and forgiving of it all, more than he has any right to be given how he was treated. How _we_ treated him. But when I try to apologise, his cheeks darken and he waves his hands and says _it doesn’t matter anymore, Dad. We’re all happy and safe and that’s what matters._

 

All this makes me proud. But what makes me happier than any of this is seeing the way he looks at Astrid.

 

I remember falling in love with Valka. I remember the little gifts, paying for her shield to be repolished, begging for her to dance with me at weddings and feasts for year after year. I remember telling her that she was the most beautiful woman on the island, that she would be remembered as the fiercest, the most striking Chieftess ever.

 

The way Hiccup looks at Astrid makes me feel I never did Valka justice.

 

I don’t think he’s told her he loves her yet. Silly boy – she knows it as well as anyone else who’s so much as glanced in their direction while they’ve been sat or stood together for any length of time. But they’re so happy I don’t think it matters. He knows she loves him too. It’s simple, uncomplicated. It’s easy, natural. It’s unconditional affection and trust.

 

It’s a blessing beyond all else in this world.

 

I never thought I would see him married. For years, I have readied myself for the inevitable day when the tribe would come to me and ask to vote for a new heir, someone greater, stronger, more a Viking than Hiccup would ever be.

 

I would not have refused them. I would have cast my own son aside for the good of the tribe and I would not have lost sleep over it.

 

And now I will see him live and be happy and marry the woman he loves and sire my grandchildren and the world is so much less bleak than it was before he shot that dragon down. Because of him. Because of my boy.

 

Oh, yes, the pain barely exists any more.

 

* * *

 

 It… doesn’t hurt?

 

I’ve seen first-hand the destruction of a Night Fury’s blast, seen the carnage it has wrought, and I am very confused as to why it doesn’t hurt at all, and why there is what feels like grass against my skin rather than fresh snow and ice…

 

“Hello, Stoick.”

 

I open my eyes to an endless field of green the colour of Valka’s eyes.

 

“Who’s speaking?” I push myself from the ground with surprising ease. “Who are you?”

 

“My name is Freyja.”

 

A figure appears in the corner of my vision. A better description than that I cannot provide, for Her features shift and change as soon as my eyes have focused on them, eyes blue and green and grey, hair knee length and cropped short and the colour of flames and honeyed mead and the dead of night all at the same time.

 

I scramble to my knees, head bowing, eyes screwing shut. She chuckles.

 

“Rise, my fallen warrior. You need not offer obeisance here, in the field of the host.”

 

The breath leaves my chest. _Fólkvangr_.

 

I am dead, then.

 

Unsurprising in the circumstances.

 

But is Hiccup-?

 

“Your son yet lives.”

 

My gaze rises to the kaleidoscope of Her irises, desperate for this truth to be so. She smiles.

 

“He has higher still to rise. Odin’s task for him is not yet done.”

 

My jaw falls so far open I am surprised I cannot feel my beard brush the grass beneath me. That Hiccup has been used as a vassal for the gods’ work, that my son was chosen in this way.

 

That I tried to prevent it…

 

She laughs, a soft, radiant shimmer that peals into the space around us as golden ribbons that shift and warp into dozens of cats that take off into the field around us, disappearing from view among the long grass.

 

“Worry not, Stoick. You are here, are you not? All you did, you did for the safety of your people. You laid down your life for your kin without a thought. We know what we have done, what is yet to be done. You impeded us by no measure.”

 

I can’t form speech. I’m not sure I am worthy of it.

 

My thoughts go back to Hiccup.

 

The Goddess smiles. “Look here,” She calls, Her arm creating ripples in the air that bend and contort until an image is visible. I stumble forward, squinting at the shapes as they focus into buildings and people and dragons-

 

Berk. My home. My people.

 

And the beast is there too, with his wicked master, spraying his icy breath and tearing my village apart. My fists clench at my side as I growl at the man who has wrought such devastation, but then I feel Her touch on my hands.

 

“Do not be consumed by your anger,” She breathes. “Watch, and see.”

 

And I do see. I see my boy’s cleverness. I see the bond he and his dragon share. I see the anger that emanates from Bludvist. _Her_ powers, of course, to see that which is beyond the human eye.

 

The attack from the beast. The Night Fury coming to his soulbond’s defence. The subtle politics of the dragons warring for control, the swift change in the obedience of the flock, the utter destruction they bring upon our enemy.

 

I see the soul of Drago Bludvist being sucked from life, his beast retreating into the depths of the ocean in defeat.

 

I see our people’s triumph and relief in victory.

 

I see our people’s jubilant acceptance of their new Chief.

 

My eyes stay on him until She waves her arm again and he and the rest of Berk disappear from view. The pain lances freshly though my chest, that I will never see my people, my tribe, my _family_ again, until they join me here or in Valhalla.

 

And if I could speak to him, the words would be flowing off my tongue with more fluency and eloquence than they ever could have done in life.

 

_Oh, my son. I wish I was better to you. I wish I had loved you properly. I wish, I wish, I wish. What use is wishing now?_

_My heart swells with something grander than pride, sweeter than love, deeper than guilt._

_All that I have suffered for you I would endure again a thousand times over to keep you safe._

 

_Be happy. Be a better Chief than I ever was. Let compassion and kindness drive you until you join me here._

 

It hurts to know I will never see my boy married to that wonderful woman. It hurts to know I will never see my wife again, after a life apart only to be reunited with such aching brevity at the end.

 

But knowing that they’re both safe, that my sacrifice was not in vain…

 

It doesn’t hurt any more. As the Goddess Freyja takes my hand and leads me to join the other fallen heroes of the field, for the first time in a very long while, it doesn’t hurt at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know why this is so heavy I'm actually super happy atm lol
> 
> comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated
> 
> be kind to yourself and others!
> 
> minty xoxo


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